


i've still got a lot of fight left in me

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Triggers [7]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of past domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26051794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: "Why wouldn't she just leave?".Maddie knows she can't blame either of the teenagers for not knowing better, for not understanding that their words have impact as she feels the burning shame of a past she so longs to forget.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Triggers [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765093
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	i've still got a lot of fight left in me

Maddie can feel the way Chimney is gripping at her thigh, the slight tremble of his hand giving away his own nerves before she takes a breath. This was a conversation they knew they’d have to have someday, they just hadn’t planned on it being quite so soon. And really, Maddie had gone back and forth the idea of whether they even needed to mention her previous marriage to their children, not when it had little to no impact on their lives as they knew it right then.

Her leg bounces beneath his touch as she chews down on her bottom lip and it’s as though her husband picks up on the fact that maybe he’s going to have to be the one to speak. “I know you probably have some questions about what happened earlier and we’ll try and answer some of them but—” He gulps, his hand tensing when she finally presses her hand against his, “We’ll try to answer as many questions as we can.”

Their fourteen-year-old daughter glances at her brother, their brown eyes meeting before they frown and look back towards their parents. At their mother who won’t meet either of their eyes and their father who barely tears his eyes away from her. Maddie can’t help but feel as though she’s let them both down – she had fought hard to be the kind of person they could be proud to call their mom. She had wanted them to see her as the strong person she felt she was most of the time, but the two becoming witness to her first panic attack in about five years, in her head, shattered that belief within seconds.

What if they never looked at her the same again? She had seen the fear in their eyes along with the confusion, heard the panic in their voices when they had screamed for their dad. It had taken her husband half an hour to calm her down enough for her to tell him what happened and then _another_ half an hour for her to try and calm him down enough to talk to their two teenagers. It wasn’t their fault, she can’t imagine the endless amounts of stupid, thoughtless things she had said when she was a teenager. 

It still hurts though, a horrific ache that remains in her chest, relieved only slightly by the fact Chimney is sitting next to her and looking at her with just as much love as he has done for the last almost sixteen years of their life together. She can’t help but smile just at the thought of the fact she has spent just as long being loved by Chimney as she had by Doug, in two completely different ways. She feels lucky and at the same time, completely awful that no amount of time or love can truly erase the past, as much as she wishes it could.

_“Why wouldn’t she just leave him?”_

The words her daughter had spoken ring through her head, over and over again until she feels her chest tighten and no, she knows she can’t go _there_ again because she needs to be present. She needs to explain to Amelia and to Henry why what they said was wrong, and why what they said had caused such an intense reaction in her. “Mom?”

Henry’s terrified voice pulls her from her own head, finally looking up at them until she finds herself shifting just that little bit closer to her husband, relieved when his hand moves from her thigh to wrap around her shoulders instead, his lips moving against her head. Maddie had always considered herself proud of getting through what she had; she had helped develop training courses over her time at dispatch, she had spoken about it openly to friends and family, to the women at the shelter she often volunteered at. She thought she was _proud_ , but right then, all she felt was deep shame, the fear that her children would see her differently completely paralysing her.

Maddie takes a deep breath, aided only by the hand squeezing against her shoulder, and the desperate eyes of their two children sitting in front of them. She can remember their conversation from earlier, after processing the news that one of their neighbours had died in what was reported to be a domestic incident. They were just kids, they didn’t fully understand that their words had impact on the people around them so, when they had questioned why she hadn’t just left her husband the moment he had started hurting her, and then commented that it was hard to feel sorry for someone like that… Maddie wishes she could have sat there and corrected them, changed their views about the world of domestic violence but instead, the panic had overridden every single sense within her.

She doesn’t know how to say it or at least, doesn’t think she can look them in the eyes as she does, trying to keep her words strong when her eyes cast down to her lap. “I was married before your dad to a man I met when I was nineteen and married when I was twenty-two. I uh—” She tries to remember the words she has spoken so many times, explaining what she had been through but the words get caught in her throat and her eyes desperately search for Chimney’s instead when the tears start to fall.

“He was abusive.” The words are blurted out and really, is there any other way of saying it? “So, what you said earlier really hurt your mom, and I know both of you didn’t know that but—I just hope that in the future, you’ll both think before you talk.” If Maddie were looking at either of their children, she’d see the embarrassment on their faces and the tears in their eyes. It’s rare that Chimney ever uses the tone of voice he’s using right then, he’s the least serious of the two parents, the one who spends most of his time joking around with them, very rarely raises his voice. “Your mom is the strongest woman I have ever met and she’s a fighter and what she went through doesn’t lessen that, it strengthens it.”

“We didn’t know.”

Amelia is the first to break the silence and Maddie can hear the tears in her voice and she’s always the first to hold their daughter when she cries but in her fourteen years on the planet, she can’t bring herself to reach for her. “No, you didn’t know and I don’t know if that’s a failure on our behalf, we just wanted to protect you both but—maybe that was wrong of us, I don’t know. But I do know you owe your mother an apology.”

Maddie shakes her head, “N-no, we all say things when we don’t understand them and god, I hope neither of you ever have to truly understand but I just—I need you both to promise me you won’t be so quick to judge someone else. That’s all I need from you.” Finally, she looks over at the two, as her daughter stubbornly wipes at the tears that fall down her face whilst her brother lets his fall freely, without shame, always more willing to externally show his emotions as his mother was. Whilst, Amelia, like her father, internalised far too much, far too often.

“Was this before you came to LA?” Amelia finally asks, tears in her eyes as she bites down on her lip, taking a breath when Maddie nods her head. “Is he the man who stabbed daddy?”

That had been a half-story they had told the two a few years before, over the scurry of questions around the scars on Chimney’s stomach and Maddie wishes she could have seen it as an opening to perhaps tell their children a version closer to the truth than the one they had, so maybe this wouldn’t have come as such a shock.

“He is. He uh—I didn’t just come to LA, I ran from him, his name was Doug and… I came here because I wanted to see your Uncle and I knew no one back home knew where he was. I didn’t plan on staying but you know what he’s like and it was really easy to have a fresh start here, to make it home.” Her head tilts towards her husband as they both give each other a small smile, “It’s just not black and white, it’s—the one thing you hear when anyone talks about domestic violence victims is that the most dangerous time is when you leave. And I knew that when I left him, I knew what I was risking but the alternative was staying and I knew that if I stayed then I’d have no chance… I ran to try and give myself that chance, do you understand?”

When the teenagers nod, Maddie gulps, “But um, he found me and I always knew that was a risk, I had hope that maybe he would move on and I could move on, too. And my biggest regret is always that your dad got caught in the crossfire.” Chimney’s heard her say it before, but he still flinches and she tilts her head to press her lips to his cheek before she continues, “I uh—god, this is harder than I thought it would be but… anyway, he found me and I fought really hard to be here, I didn’t know exactly what kind of future I was fighting for but I didn’t give up. And—I am so, so glad that I didn’t because now my life is so full of joy and your dad has shown me more love and kindness than I ever thought possible and he gave me you two which… which is the greatest gift I ever could have asked for.”

“W-what happened to him? To… Doug?” Henry frowns, shifting uncomfortably in his seat before his sister protectively wraps her arm around him - it’s almost comical how much the two remind Maddie of herself and Buck. He’s just over a year younger than her but he already towers over her in the exact same way Buck had her at thirteen (even before that).

Chimney takes this one and Maddie has felt relief for having the man in her life so many times over the years, this just adding to the pot. “He died. Like your mom said, she had to fight and—she wouldn’t be here today if she hadn’t done what she did, so…” The two at least seem to understand, at least enough to practically lunge forward to join their parents on the couch; Henry snuggling up to the side of his mother that Chimney doesn’t occupy whilst Amelia throws herself on her lap.

It’s easy to forget the time she had spent with her husband as he tried to calm her down just over an hour before, the moment she finds herself involved in some kind of Han sandwich as her husband presses his lips against her head once more and Amelia and Henry throw their arms around her as tightly as they possibly can.

“I’m so proud of you, mom.”

“Me too.”

“Me three.” Chimney chimes in, with a smile on his face when Maddie rolls her eyes before she hides her face in the top of her daughter’s dark hair, wrapping an arm around Henry as she pulls him impossibly closer to her. She had fought so hard for her life in the snow that day and so many times before that in the time she had spent with Doug, and somehow, despite every ounce of pain and fear it had caused at the time, it had never felt more worth it than it did right then. With her arms wrapped around her family, the comfort of them so close, as they hold each other so tightly.


End file.
